Bad News! Windows 10 Will Soon Have a Real Linux Kernel

The upcoming version of Windows 10 will feature a real Linux kernel in it as part of Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

When Microsoft first announced bash on Windows and brought Linux inside Windows as Windows Subsystem for Linux (popularly known as WSL), few would have thought that the next step would be to bring the real Linux kernel inside Windows operating system.

But Microsoft has just done that. Among several other announcements at the Microsoft Build 2019 conference, it announced bringing the real Linux kernel to Windows 10 for WSL.

WSL 2 with real Linux kernel in Windows 10

WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) is a Linux kernel compatibility layer for Windows. It allows many Linux programs (mainly the command line ones) to run inside Windows. This feature is also called ‘bash on Windows’.

In WSL 2, the Linux kernel compatibility layer has been replaced by the real Linux kernel. So now if you use WSL, you’ll be using the real Linux kernel 4.19.

this will be the first time a Linux kernel is shipped with Windows, which is a true testament to how much Microsoft loves Linux

Craig Loewen, Program Manager, Windows Developer Platform

The advantages of real Linux kernel in WSL 2

It has been optimized for size and performance to give an amazing Linux experience on Windows. We will service this Linux kernel through Windows updates, which means you will get the latest security fixes and kernel improvements without needing to manage it yourself.

The inclusion of real Linux kernel will boost the file-system I/O and system calls. The specifically optimized Linux kernel makes WSL 2 faster than WSL 1. In certain tasks like, unpacking a tarball, WSL 2 was 20x faster than WSL 1 and around 5x faster in using Git clone, npm install.

WSL 2 also allows Windows to run docker containers natively. You probably already know that Docker and Linux containers are the backbone of the IT industry these days and most of the software deployments take advantage of the Linux containers.

The Linux kernel will get security fixes, kernel improvements and other updates through Windows updates. Hah! Does this mean Linux kernel will start upgrading in the middle of work like Windows updates? That remains to be seen.

When is WSL 2 releasing? Which Linux distros are available via WSL 2?

WSL 2 will be available through Windows insider program by the end of June. Windows insider program is sort of a beta program for early adapters and developers to try out the upcoming Windows features before its final release.

There is no date for WSL 2 release to the general public, yet.

Canonical has announced the support for WSL 2 meaning you would be able to use Ubuntu through WSL 2.

Collaboration with Microsoft enables us to certify Ubuntu on WSL, including Docker containers, Kubernetes, and snaps

Stephan Fabel, Director of Product at Canonical

Opinion/rant on Linux Kernel in Windows and Microsoft’s so-called love for Linux and Open Source

Microsoft Loves Linux?

This is strictly my opinion. You may call it rant, I don’t really mind.

The so-called ‘love for Linux’ seems more like ‘lust for Linux’ to me. The Linux community is behaving like a teen-aged girl madly in love with a brute. Who benefits from this Microsoft-Linux relationship? Clearly, Microsoft has more to gain here. The WSL has the capacity of shrinking (desktop) Linux to a mere desktop app in this partnership.

By bringing Linux kernel to Windows 10 desktop, programmers and software developers will be able to use Linux for setting up programming environments and use tools like Docker for deployment. They won’t have to leave the Windows ecosystem or use a virtual machine or log in to a remote Linux system through Putty or other SSH clients.

In the coming years, a significant population of future generation of programmers won’t even bother to try Linux desktop because they’ll get everything right in their systems that comes pre-installed with Windows.

Linux kernel will continue to grow in the IT infrastructure, thanks to the efforts of Linux Foundation backed by the enterprise giants for their own interests.

The desktop Linux will unfortunately see a decline. The Linux Foundation already doesn’t care about the desktop Linux. Out of the millions it gets, literally nothing goes for the development of desktop Linux (as far as I know). Linux Foundation doesn’t make any effort to support desktop Linux probably because it doesn’t generate any money.

But when it comes to bringing commercial products like Microsoft Office to Linux, Microsoft suddenly recalls that there is not ‘enough demand’ for MS Office on Linux.

Not enough demand? So, were people signing petitions or holding yellow jacket protests for open sourcing Windows calculator?

Microsoft is one of the biggest contributors to open source project on GitHub (platform now owned by Microsoft). But if you look at their projects, you’ll notice that almost all of the Microsoft’s open source products are aimed at programmers and software developers.

This is not love, Microsoft and Linux. This is merely a relationship of convenience.

About Abhishek Prakash

I am a professional software developer, and founder of It's FOSS. I am an avid Linux lover and open source enthusiast. I use Ubuntu and believe in sharing knowledge. Apart from Linux, I love classic detective mysteries. I'm a huge fan of Agatha Christie's work.

> They won’t have to leave the Windows ecosystem or use a virtual machine or log in to a remote Linux system through Putty or other SSH clients.

To me this is a good thing. Over 80% of corporate desktop environments are Windows-based (Apple and IBM being the main exception here). Startups are usually Mac-based but good luck getting anyone else from the Fortune 500 list to allow their corporate devs to install anything but Windows. I’ve been at 3 of the top 250 companies for the past 15 years and even getting admin rights to install WSL or docker is at minimum a 3 week ordeal with sword-of-damocles “if we find out this thing brought in an APT or ransomware, even god will not be able to help you” forms I have to get directors to approve. And Cygwin just doesn’t cut it because not enough things run natively over it (especially because their posix pipes emulation is pretty non-existent).

Not to mention, the skills gap. There are a lot of business school grads with their fancy data analytics degrees coming over. They only know Windows. I have kids joining teams that can’t figure out how to build or launch their app outside of their IDEs because they transitioned from VBA macros last year. So not having to muck with getting them a linux account on some staging environment somewhere, playing with Putty, etc. is a good thing to get them settled and getting real work done instead of having to play mangled-together-devops engineer for them.

So letting corporate do their unified desktop engineering thing while letting everyone else easily develop on our windows desktops so we can deploy out to the cloud? I’d buy *that* for a dollar!

If the goal is to evangelize FOSS and empower developers in the enterprise, you gotta start somewhere, and having Microsoft on your side is big win from whichever direction you need to face.

Damn… And I thought even briefly that Microsoft might have finally realized their software sucks and capitulated to the REAL secure Linux kernel instead of their false-sense-of-security Windows kernel…

I just downloaded and installed linux mint cinnamon, because windows 10 pissed me off for the final time, I’m new to linux and mint was suggested to me for it’s ease of transition from windows to linux.. i hope this “relationship” between microsoft and linux doesn’t screw the linux community over, like Microsoft has a habit of doing.

Someone asked where the double page Microsoft ads were that I mentioned in my earlier comment. Around 1997 to 1999. PC Magazine, Byte or ComputerWorld. Issues on archive.org are too old. The ads were mostly aimed at corporate/business computer users rather than hobbyists. With wording to the effect “Don’t trust your business to the rag-tag hackers behind Linux. Only use software developed by the professionals at Microsoft.”

I left windows10 due to forced updates and the feeling that my machine was no longer my own – compounded by the sheer quantity of telemetry that I logged doing back to Microsoft – what exactly are they watching?

I have many varied requirements in areas as diverse as CADCAM, graphics, web coding, database work, music recording and the usual office type stuff.

I only ever looked back in the first two or three weeks of using linux – and after 20 years of experience using windows and 2 weeks of using linux of course it really is not surprising that those first two weeks were tough but once I had got over the tough bits it has been fantastic every since.

I actually feel I own my machine again – I can choose to update or not to update and I can choose what gets updated – I can wind forward or wind back – nothing imposed and loads of folks out there who offer help and advice in forums which is so candid and honest compared with the corporate BS you get from MS from some poor minimum wage worker on the other side of the globe who is so very very pleased to help you resolve your problems and cannot wait to sign off and wish you a great day despite the fact that you are pulling your hair out and they did not manage to help you resolve your issues.

Life can be stressful, sometimes its unavoidable, other times you can do something about it – I did and I reckon I will live a little longer now I am totally free from Microsoft. Seriously I was getting stressed out – too many projects that were very important to me getting trashed because of careless updates from Microsoft.

Could you detail how your projects were “trashed” by Windows updates? Also you mentioned that they were “too many” of them. I am sorry but I think this is not a honest review whatsoever, but a childish rant.